There have been many popular viral marketing campaigns in the last few years. Here at Seven Creative towers, we’ve been giggling away at the new Bodyform advert. OK, so there are more women in our office than men, but even Chris managed a guilty smile and a few words of praise for its originality.

The Bodyform video is actually a response to a post on the Bodyform Facebook page. Many are of the opinion that it’s a set up (including us) but whether real or not, the response by Bodyform is pure genius.

A man called Richard (supposedly) writes a long post on Facebook accusing Bodyform’s depiction of periods as a joy filled action packed week as being misleading. Incidentally, his own girl friend has been known to turn into ‘the little girl from the exorcist with added venom and extra 360 degree head spin.’ The video response is a faux apology by the CEO of Bodyform (allegedly) laced with sarcasm and humour that will leave both men and women chuckling.

The Blair Witch

We can’t talk about viral marketing campaigns without mentioning this one. Using a cheap guerrilla campaign, a film was released onto the internet about a group of American teenagers that had vanished, and the so called recovered footage of the spooky events that followed. The film was a huge success, and the mystery and rumours that surrounded the developing story were exacerbated by the simple fact that no one was quite sure if the story was true.

Old Spice: The man your man could smell like

This one was definitely for the girls, despite being all about the men’s fragrance and toiletry range Old Spice. What was particularly impressive about this advert was that in less than a minute, Old Spice had re-branded itself from an old fashioned granddaddy scent (my Granddad has worn Old Spice for as long as I can remember), to a brand suitable and trendy enough for the 18-25 demographic.

It was so funny that you couldn’t have a conversation with a group of lads at the time without one of the random, nonsensical quotes being dropped in. The Old Spice guy then went a step further by answering questions on Twitter, including conversations with the king of Twitter himself, Ashton Kutcher.

Threshers Viral E-mail

Sometimes the best viral marketing campaigns are those born out of pure accident. When Theshers offered its suppliers a 40% discount on wine and champagne, the mass market caught wind of the deal. Subsequently, the voucher appeared on blogs and social media channels, and suddenly everyone had an email in their inbox promising cheep booze.

Well, who could say no to that? No one it seemed, as queues formed outside stores and the website crashed under the strain. A spokesperson for Threshers admitted “It was never intended to get this big.” But no one could deny that it was great publicity of the company, and it certainly got them noticed.